MOULTRIE – It’s not often that a Class 7A vs. Class 2A would generate this kind of buzz. But Colquitt County High head football coach Rush Propst, after 10 seasons of coaching the Packers, thinks we are about to see the largest crowd ever file in to see a game on Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium in his tenure.

On Friday, with an 8 p.m. kickoff, 2-0 Colquitt County – No. 1 in one state poll for 7A – is taking on the 2-0 Thomasville High Bulldogs – No. 3 in that same poll for 2A. It’s the first head-to-head matchup for Propst against a former assistant, Zach Grage, who is coming off a 12-1 season. That was Thomasville’s first with double-digit wins in 10 years and most overall since going 15-0 in 1988.

This is Grage’s third season in Thomasville and fourth overall as a head coach since leaving Propst’s Packer staff after the 2014 season. He spent his rookie season at Gilmer High in north Georgia, going 4-6, and was 5-5 after taking over the Bulldogs in 2016.

“Football coaching is a never ending struggle for perfection,” said Propst. “I’m in my 30th and he’s in his fourth. I can tell you he is ahead of where I was after three years of coaching. My fourth year was a breakout year as a head football coach, and his breakout year was obviously last year. They went 12-1 and probably felt they should have went further.

“First, he did a (great) job for me. He was a very loyal, hard-working guy, very smart guy whom I relied on very heavily. He progressed the right way. He came in as a 9th grade coach for a few years, then I moved him to a position coach, and from there he became a co-coordinator. Then he became a strength coach. He had his hand in a lot of things in the seven years he was with me.

“After we won the state title in 2014, he felt he was ready to go be a head coach. I was a little concerned about where he was going. But you have to get your feet wet. Sometimes you have to take jobs like that. If you are going to be a head coach, you better take jobs nobody else wants. I took the Asheville job in 1989. They had never won a playoff game in the history of the school. He took the Gilmer job, which is traditionally not a good football job. He ran into some struggles there, and I’m sure he learned a lot that first year.

“The Thomasville job became available. He got it. There is tradition there. They are excited. They want to do well and got the right guy to do that. His staff has done a good job. They are playing with a lot of emotion. This will be a good test for them and a good test for us. I predict that the crowd Friday night will be the biggest crowd we’ve had here in my 11 years. I don’t know if we’ve had a crowd as big as what we could possibly have. Everybody in Thomasville will be here. I promise.”

And that’s with a team, the Packers, in the state’s largest classification that in just the last two years alone hosted Lowndes and Tift County in huge region games. This weekend, the Thomasville county rival, Thomas County-Central, has a bye, so those who really love high school football know where the place to be will be.

What Grage is also doing right at Thomasville High is beating that rival, the TC-C Yellow Jackets. After losing the first game 16-14, the Bulldogs have owned the Jackets the last two times out 41-7 and last weekend’s 39-7 rout.

Propst said he saw the latest game and agreed that it was Bulldog domination. He said Thomas County-Central will need time to adjust to its new head coach, Ashley Henderson, who is bringing in a new system after their years and years in the split-back veer.

“That will be an interesting battle in a few years,” said Propst.

In the matchup Colquitt will face, Thomasville is about as balanced as can be through two games, 375 yards passing and 350 rushing with eight touchdowns split half and half.

“Their speed’s good,” said Propst. “They are aggressive, a blitz-happy team. Out of a 3-3 stack (defense), they give you a lot of different looks. They put a lot of looks on the back end of it. I think they roll the dice some on defense. Sherrod Reynolds and Phillip Brown have both worked here with me. They are going to sell out and they’ve got some athletes to do it.

“Their quarterback’s the real deal.”

And that QB is a freshman, Chad Mascoe II, who has all of those passing statistics so far completing 56 percent of his passes (29-for-52).

“He is probably going to be one of the most prolific quarterbacks to ever come out of there,” said Propst. “This kid has a chance to be special, really special. I’m not ready to compare him to Mike Bobo yet, but he is a good football player.”